


Forever Wild

by casketfaction (orphan_account)



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: F/M, M/M, Multi, Pre-s3, derek and stiles are bad at people, sllloooow burn until it isn't
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-06-05
Updated: 2013-06-05
Packaged: 2017-12-14 01:00:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,831
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/830875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/casketfaction
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The summer before "Tattoo".</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

It’s been a quiet first week of summer. 

Stiles has been trucking on over bright and early (around noon) every day to the McCall house, sometimes he passes Melissa and they wave to each other. He pries Scott out of bed and shoves some clothes into his arms, then escorts his heartbroken, droopy-faced best friend into the bathroom and waits outside the door until the shower turns on. Then once Scott rumbles down the stairs, Stiles sticks a plate or bowl of something in front of him and they head out. 

It’s good, it keeps Stiles going. It’s as much for him as it is for Scott. 

They still haven’t talked about That Night, or the weeks leading up to That Night where Scott lied to everybody. Scott has mostly just followed behind Stiles, a smile creeping onto his face the further they get from Beacon Hills as they drive to their next destination. 

Today they’re checking out a river nearby, it’s a few miles of a hike but Stiles has room for sodas in a mesh bag containing their phones and two towels. They stop at Quizno’s on the way out of town and he sticks their sandwiches and chips in the bag too. Scott leans his forehead against the window, his breathing is quiet and unobtrusive and Stiles is about to reach over and punch him in the shoulder when Scott turns to him with a teasing expression. 

“It’s too quiet, say something,” Scott prompts and flashes a quick grin at him. 

“Last night I ended up on a website that was all about My Little Pony porn,” Stiles spreads his fingers wide on the steering wheel. “I think I need to take a break from the Internet.”

Scott giggles and runs his hand through his hair. “Jesus. I don’t even know where to start.”

“You can start by telling me that you too have also ended up in that part of the Internet and share your own tale,” Stiles says and Scott taps his fingers on his knee. 

“Okay,okay. I got one,” Scott groans and hides his face in his hands and Stiles settles back in his seat. 

***

 

The hike is shorter than anticipated, and Scott is over-joyed when they stumble across a deer drinking from the river. There’s a gap between the river bed and the treeline that’s littered with boulders and smaller rocks and the occasional shrub. The deer watches them from across the gap with baleful eyes and Scott drops the mesh bag and darts across it, the deer breaks into a sprint and Stiles can hear Scott hooting as he chases the doe back into the treeline a few yards down. 

Stiles picks up the bag and carefully makes his way down to the river, mindful of the stones. There’s a cliff on the other side of the river that towers over Stiles, it’s got trees growing out of it and their pale roots twist in the sun where some of the cliff had fallen away. He lays out their blankets and hangs their bag on a tree branch nearby, then slides off his shoes and strips out of his shirt. He’s wading into the water slowly when Scott scrabbles out of the woods over the rocks, grinning and pulling his shirt off and kicking off his flip-flops. He tackles Stiles into the water and Stiles’ sputters but then they’re swimming against the current up to where it gets to be too much for Stiles and he has to pull himself along by the stones underwater. 

This is familiar to them, and Stiles has been doing this for years. Things are a little different, he’s more used to nine-year-old, asthmatic Scott slowly pulling himself up alongside Stiles and how they’d giggle in anticipation for the oncoming adrenaline rush that was the ride back down the river’s rapids. Scott waits for him the peak of the river, where there was a small waterfall and when Stiles finally reaches him they dredge their way through the thundering water to stand in the middle. 

“Geranimo?” Stiles asks, and Scott rolls his eyes and steps into the water, immediately getting torn away from Stiles as he shoots through the water. Stiles forgets to get in, stuck on watching his friend shout as he rides the motion of the water all the way down to the more gentle pool that Stiles had originally laid their towels down at. A few rocks skitter down the side of the cliff and Stiles turns to peer up at the trees, trying to find the cause of the disturbance. 

There’s nothing there that Stiles can see and Scott’s shaking his head, flinging water everywhere and then turning back to Stiles and calling out for him to come on and hurry up.

Stiles sucks in a deep breath and slips into the water. Everything's a blur of green and sky blue, his feet drag over the occasional hidden boulder and he spins a little as he rounds the bend of the river. He gets sucked under briefly when there’s a drop and when he surfaces again, flinging his head back to get more air he swears he sees a red flash up on the cliff. Then it’s gone and he’s back to the raucous water and he writes it off. 

Scott brings him in for a noogie once he reaches the bottom and they just fuck around, chasing fish and Scott thinks it’s hilarious to lift Stiles up over his head and fling him as far as he can. 

To be fair, it is pretty fun. 

They crawl out of the water after a few hours and flop onto their towels, the sun’s high in the sky and quickly dries their skin. They bask for a while and finally Scott gives into Stiles’ grumbly noises and fetches the bag from the tree branch. They eat their sandwiches in silence, Scott’s meatball sub drips onto his chest and Stiles’ wrinkles his nose when Scott just scoops it up and sucks his fingers clean. 

“You’re disgusting, truly. Did you know that?”

“I once ate a rabbit on accident, this is nothing,” Scott retorts and stuffs the last quarter of his sub into his mouth. He washes down what has to be a giant wad of food with the last of his soda and Stiles rolls his eyes. 

“That’s not making you any less gross,” he counters and Scott crunches loudly through his chip. 

They nap in the sun after eating and when the sun starts setting behind the cliff they pack up. They make idle plans to marathon LOTR in preparation for the upcoming Hobbit film on the way back to the Jeep, Scott seems really enthusiastic about purchasing a Legolas stand-up and taking pictures of him doing random crap to put on reddit. Stiles humors him. 

It’s dusk by the time they make it to the road and Stiles almost doesn’t notice the giant carcass on the hood of his car. 

Almost. 

“Jesus Christ--” Stiles hides his nose behind his arm when the rich smell of blood hits him and he can see the glazed eyes of the deer. “What the fuck?”

“That’s the deer from earlier,” Scott says, his nostrils flaring and his eyes glinting golden in the din of dusk. 

“Why did you put it on my car? That’s--”

“I didn’t do this,” Scott says urgently and edges closer. “I don’t--I can’t recognize the scent. I think it’s another werewolf?” 

“Holy shit, Scott. Look,” Stiles points at the belly of the beast, there’s a weird symbol carved into it that looks like Derek’s tattoo, just sharper. 

“What is that?” 

“I don’t know,” Stiles pulls his phone out of their bag and takes a picture, the flash startles them both in the haze of sunset. “Can you, I don’t know, move it?”

“I don’t want to touch it!” Scott yelps and Stiles wrinkles his face at him. 

“I can’t lift an entire deer, you have to.”

Scott makes a disgusted face the entire time he’s carrying the deer into the woods. He’s gone for several long moments and Stiles feels increasingly nervous the longer he’s gone. There’s a rustling in the brush and Stiles shifts on the balls of his feet but it’s just Scott, stepping out of the trees with streaks of blood on his bare chest. It reminds Stiles’ of the sub for one quick second and he bites back a hysterical smile. 

“What the actual fuck though,” Stiles says once they’re in the Jeep and Scott glances over at him. His eyes are still bright gold and he’s tapping his finger on the car door rapidly. They’re both thrumming with energy and by the time they’re back in town it’s dark. Stiles drives through an automatic car wash stationed beside the gas station and they sit in the silence as the machine churns around them. 

“Do you want me to stay over tonight?” Scott asks and Stiles shakes his head, he knows Scott has made a pact to bridge the ever-decreasing gap that’s developed between him and his mom. Besides, he’s got his own dad to worry about. 

***  
His house is dark when he gets home and there’s a note stuck to the fridge with a magnet. 

Working late tonight, burger+coke waiting in the fridge. 

Stiles’ stomach churns at the idea, he’s still stuck on mental images of that deer. He thinks about starting his research on the deer, but he’s tired from his day and instead just showers quickly, tugs on some boxers, plugs in his phone to charge and flops down face first on the bed. 

He’s asleep in moments. 

***  
In the morning he makes a pot of coffee and eats his cold burger while he waits. His dad’s sheriff coat is on the coat hanger, Stiles can hear him snoring upstairs and he closes his eyes and breathes slowly. The coffee maker beeps and he fixes a giant mug for himself and takes it back up to his room. He cracks his knuckles and settles in front of his computer, then grabs his phone to send that picture to his e-mail so he can reverse-image search it. 

One problem, it’s not in his phone anymore. It’s been deleted. 

One glance over at his window and his heart stutters, the curtain is pinned underneath the sill. Stiles knows it wasn’t like that before. Someone was in his room last night. Someone deleted a picture of a weird symbol, possibly the same someone who left the symbol on the deer. 

Stiles steadfastly ignores the thought nibbling at the back of his brain until he can’t. 

_Or something._


	2. Chapter 2

He sets his phone down and walks over to the window, tugs free the curtain and then locks the window. Then he kneels on the floor by his bed and pulls out a garbage bag full of mountain ash and lines the window. He proceeds to line every window in the house except for his dad’s room, but soon his dad will leave and he’ll have time then.

He lines the backdoor and hesitates before lining the front, then decides on hiding the ash under the doormat. When he stands up after and turns his dad is watching him from the bottom of the stairs, a bemused look on his face and one hand still poised to ruffle a towel through his damp hair. 

“Hey, there, buddy,” Stiles says cheerfully and his dad’s mouth seals into a grim line. 

“What’s with the sand, _buddy_ ,” his father retorts. 

“Well, um, air freshener. It’s for freshening the...air.”

His dad’s face clearly states how much he thinks that’s bullshit. “You’re freshening the air outside our front door?”

“Wow, freshening doesn’t even sound like a word anymore,” Stiles shifts awkwardly and then the coffee maker beeps, signifying that the timer for heating has gone off and it’s turned itself off. 

“I wish you hadn’t lost the damned instructions for that thing so I could figure out how to keep it from turning off,” his dad grumbles but apparently hot coffee is worth more to him than chasing the story behind the ‘air freshener’. 

“Right, Scott’s coming over in a little bit to watch the Lord of the Ring series. You wanna watch too?”

His dad glances at him quickly and is quiet for the long moments while he adds some milk to his coffee and a few sachets of Equal. “Sorry, kid. I have to pull a few extra shifts until we can get some more officers. I’m not sure you’ll be seeing much of me this summer.”

“Oh, no, that’s cool,” Stiles fidgets with the garbage bag in his hands, poking his fingers against the plastic until it stretches white. “I get it.”

“Right. I’m going to go get dressed. Leave the cereal out for me?”

“Yep, you got it,” Stiles shoots his dad with an imaginary finger gun and then drops the bag to the floor when his dad is up the stairs. He leans his elbows on the counter, face buried in his hands and forces his muscles to uncoil. His nerves are shot and this was supposed to be a chill summer. 

No freaky lizard monsters, no crazy geriatrics, just him and Scott and nothing else. Now there are freaky carved deer corpses on his Jeep and people in his room while he sleeps and this is not what he hoped for. He does take out the cereal and pours his dad a pull of Special K, then chunks up a banana on top. He leaves the milk in the fridge because his dad has a weird thing with warm milk and then he goes upstairs to his room. 

He sketches out the general shape of symbol he had seen and tucks it away in his drawer. His dad thunders down the stairs and clinks around in the kitchen for awhile, then he hears him call good bye and the front door close. 

His phone vibrates loudly on his computer desk, it’s a message from Scott. 

Almost there, got pizza (:

Stiles glances at the window one more time and then makes his way downstairs to break the ash so Scott can come in. Scott’s mom’s car pulls up outside his house and Stiles waves to Melissa, she’s in her scrubs and doesn’t linger beyond kissing the side of Scott’s head and flashing a peace sign at Stiles. Scott jogs up Stiles’ driveway with two boxes of pizza in his arms and a plastic bag with a two-liter inside. 

“It’s like ten in the morning,” Stiles calls to him and Scott grins at him. “It’s too early for pizza.

“That’s where you are wrong,” he shoulders past Stiles into the living room. “It’s always pizza time.”

Scott stops in the living room doorway and his head swivels to stare up at the upper floor. Stiles watches him carefully as Scott sets down his food and the drink and slowly creeps up the stairs, his nose twitching. 

“What do you got?” Stiles asks, following him cautiously and Scott ignores him in favor of pushing open Stiles’ door. 

“Why was Derek here?” Scott snaps, whirling back on Stiles with flashing eyes. 

“I didn’t know he was,” Stiles says, hands raised in surrender.

“He was in your room without you knowing?”

“Obviously,” Stiles drawls. “He deleted that picture of the deer off my phone.” Stiles watches Scott’s face flicker from angry to worried and then back to worried. 

“That’s why you put up the wards,” Scott ushers Stiles back out of his rooms and down into the living room. 

“Wana clue me in on your thinking?” Stiles calls because after Scott had pushed him down onto the couch and shoved a slice of pizza into his hand he had dashed off into the kitchen. 

“I’m just--I can’t do this,” Scott says miserably and then he’s slumping into the living room with a napkin and cup in his hands. “I just want to be a regular guy. I just want a girlfriend and beer and frickin’ pizza.” 

Stiles can feel his face twist up and he stands and brings Scott in for a bro-hug. “This is our summer, Scott. We aren’t going to even worry about that weird deer because Derek is obviously handling it. We’re going to have pizza and I can probably find us some beer and that’s all the effort we’re putting into it.” He draws back from the hug and Scott’s looking less desperate and he pats him on the shoulder. “You forgot your cup, buddy.” 

Scott stares down at his hands which are only holding one red plastic cup and groans. 

***  
So, Stiles really did mean that Scott wasn’t going to have to worry about this shit all summer. This vacation from the perma-crazy that is Beacon Hills, however, does not extend to the never-ending intensity that is [REDACTED] ‘Stiles’ Stilinski. 

“Wow, so this is weird,” Stiles grips his steering wheel a little tighter and coughs awkwardly. “Uh, Derek, are you here?”

He’s idling in front of the Hale house, feeling like a giant idiot for talking to nobody. He’s just about to bail when the front door creaks open slowly and Derek warily steps out. 

“Great,” Stiles sighs, half relieved and half-disappointed. Derek scowls deeper and turns to enter the house again. “Wait, dammit--” 

Stiles turns off his car then flails out of it and scampers across the weeds and undergrowth that’s cropped up in the spring bloom. He marches up the steps of the Hale house but hesitates outside the door, the same symbol from the deer is carved on to the front. Inside, he can hear the scuff of what he assumes to be Derek’s shoes on wooden floors and walks through the door. 

It’s dark in the house, there’s beacons of light scattered throughout from holes in the ceiling and the air is musty and wet like the forest that surrounds it. Ivy and morning glory vines have crept in through the charred down walls and they weave around hunks of wood and burned furniture frames. It’s the sort of thing Stiles would want to put on Instagram if he had one. 

“What do you want?” Derek asks, standing just beside a stream of sunlight. The dust motes flutter beside him and Stiles snorts at his melo-dramataic actions, whether it’s intentional or not, it’s funny. 

“Why did you delete that picture off my phone?”

Derek looks like he’s going to play dumb for a little while but then he sighs and scrubs a hand over his neck. “It’s not your concern. You don’t need to worry about it.”

“There was a dead deer on my car, I’m pretty sure it’s a little bit my concern.”

“Stiles, can you just listen to me for once?”

“Yeah, listening. Not really my forte if you’ve noticed.”

Derek glares at him and then visibly deflates. “Just, please. Isaac already won’t listen and Boyd and Erica--” 

He cuts himself off and Stiles can’t help the pang of sympathy he feels, Derek doesn’t even look like himself anymore. He looks _sad_ , and more vulnerable than Stiles had ever seen him. 

“Whatever is going on can’t be worse than what we’ve already faced. And if we actually work together--”

“No. This is not your battle. Don’t tell Scott, don’t come back here, don’t--”

“Look, wolfy, I happen to have a pretty strong batch of oppositional defiance disorder cooking up in my brain pan and all you’re doing is turning up the heat.”

“What does that even mean?” Derek asks, an edge of exasperation in his voice. 

“It means, surrender now. Let me help you, I know I can.”

“Get out of here,” Derek finally explodes. “This isn’t your business.”

“I’m not leavin--”

“Oh, yes, you are,” Derek grabs him by the back of his shirt and frog-marches him out the door. Stiles trips down the stairs and over the weeds all the way back to his card, Derek still leading him forcefully. Derek finally shoves him up against Jeep with one arm like an iron band against his throat. “You will stay away from here, you will be _smart_ about what you do because there is a danger, and you will not tell Scott a single fucking thing about any of this. Am. I. Clear.”

The last three words are coupled with Derek inching forward so close that his breath is still hot when it brushes against Stiles’ face. 

“Yeah, I got it. Jesus,” Stiles whines, turning away from Derek’s sharp eyes. 

“Good.” Derek pulls back and straightens Stiles’ shirt in a strangely familiar gesture. His hands linger for a split second against Stiles’ chest and then they drop to Derek’s sides. “Good.”

Stiles climbs into his Jeep and fumbles with the key and by the time he looks up again Derek is gone.   
***  
Really though, Derek should know better. 

If anything his curiosity is increased ten-fold and he’s knee deep in Gaelic symbolism within thirty minutes of arriving home. He’s gnawing on the plastic rim of his cup when there’s a sudden knock on his window. 

He doesn’t shriek. Much.

Derek is perched outside his window, glaring at him with such anger that Stiles contemplates not letting him in. 

“I swear to god I will piss in your Jeep,” Derek says and Stiles is tripping over himself to pry the window open and break the ash line.

“Wow, way to escalate,” he hisses and Derek stalks over to look at Stiles’ computer screen. He purses his lips and turns to face Stiles who has plopped on the bed, his eyebrows rise as if to say ‘really? really, stiles?’. 

“Yes, really,” Stiles snaps and Derek’s eyebrows drop. Stiles buries his face in his hands and then lifts his palms to face Derek. “Okay, look, before you get all mad at me answer a question for me.”

“No.”

Stiles barrels on, undeterred. “Are we talking druids?”

“What? No.” Derek scoffs and snags the doodle of the symbol off Stiles’ desk and crumples it. 

“Oh, wow, big scary Alpha can crumple a slip of paper,” Stiles jeers and Derek just rolls his eyes and stuffs the paper wad in his jacket pocket. “So, not druids.”

“Stiles, stop,” Derek drops to a crouch before Stiles and looks him dead in the eyes. “This is not your issue. Be a regular kid. I don’t--I never wanted this to involve any of you.”

Derek crosses his room abruptly, leaving Stiles to gape after him. “Am I having a stroke? Does Derek Hale actually have a soul?”

“Shut the fuck up, Stiles,” Derek snaps and his shoulders a tight under his leather jacket. “Drop this. Please.”

And with that he’s crawling out of Stiles’ window and dropping off the awning to disappear into the dusk. 

“Not gonna happen,” Stiles calls and then locks his window back and re-establishes the ward. “There’s no way I’m dropping this.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm on tumblr at [riskyblogness.](http://www.riskyblogness.tumblr.com)

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Lana del Rey's 'Young and Beautiful'.


End file.
